This true-born Rebel's take on writing, books, dogs and life- it's her cause.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Let's take this seriously...

"It's writing, d-mn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe."--Stephen King On Writing

My thanks to Lisa W. for lending me Stephen King's memoir On Writing. If anyone needed a kick in the pants, it was me. I have over 70k words and I let myself stall out. Yes, life sucks. Yes, life's busy. Yes, I'd really rather be reading the next book in one of the dozens of series I'm reading...but I'm also writing a book. So maybe I need to remember why.

Why am I writing this book? What on earth could I possibly have to say that other people in this world would be interested in reading? Well, actually, that's half the fun. I, for one, enjoy re-reading what I've written. There are times when I go back to edit and think "OMG, that's brilliant." I'm completely surprised and impressed by the paths my imagination takes me.

And there are plenty of other times that this quote from Stephen King's On Writing fits perfectly: "Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel sh-t from a sitting position." I sat with my laptop on my lap for four hours and was only able to bang out a whopping page-and-a-half. My head ached, my eyes hurt and I felt as though I had battled for every last word. It was literally one word forward three words back--I'd write something and decide the whole lot of it was crap and delete it all. Once I finally forced it out, I went to bed mentally exhausted. When I re-read it the next day I was pleased with what I had accomplished and was almost more happy with that little bit I had to fight for than the eight pages that flowed out in a matter of two hours that next day.

So what is the purpose of this blog? To reinforce to myself that this is very serious to me. I want my book published, not sitting in a word document on my desktop of my laptop. And maybe have a few other people read it and enjoy it as much as I have.